Guest Post: MF Global - A Fractal In A Frying Pan

Gerald Celente, in an interview with Russia Today, claims he cannot access his PM trading account or get answers to his inquiries. It turns out Lind-Waldock, who he originally had the account with, was subsequently bought out by the now bankrupting MF Global. Understandably distraught, Celente asserts, “They took my money out of my account, six figures, and they have it. They closed out two of my positions, and I cannot get any answers, and I can’t get my money.”

Celente got many of us thinking—“If a guy like him can be refused access to his money, then who is safe?” Some argue he should not have been buying “paper gold.” Celente states that he was buying PM futures and taking delivery. “Max Keiser” the “Silver Bears” “Turd Fergusen” and more, have encouraged us to buy silver and “Bust the Comex.” Many of us here on Zero Hedge have fantasized in the comments section about someone wealthy enough to lay a few billion on the Comex for PMs and then stand for delivery. Celente, it is arguable, was doing this not only for himself but perhaps for Joe and Josephine Average who do not have the ammunition to fight this fight.

But as I got to thinking, I realized all of the above misses a valuable take away lesson. It is not simply the case that MF Global is a “first domino to fall” or a “canary in the coal mine” or a “harbinger of collapse.” MF Global is a fractal in a frying pan. Because of the defaults that must take place (municipal debt, sovereign debt, empty box MBS, CRE, I could go on and on), MF Global is showing us an early template, or fractal structure, for how these bankruptcies are going to manifest in our daily lives. MF Global is now falling out of the frying pan and into the fire and MANY OF US WILL FOLLOW. As the flow of bankruptcies increases, our everyday lived experience will be reshaped by the realities of the new structure as it is branded on our lives—financially and emotionally.

While Gerald Celente is crying about his lost six-figure account, Bill Fleckenstein also has personal money tied up with MF Global. He is hopeful that he will get it back but is critical of the authority figures involved. Celente does not expect to get all of his money back. Ann Barnhardt of Barnhardt Capital Management has shuttered its operations after six-years in the business. She did not feel like her clients’ funds were safe in the futures and options market any more. Lawrence Lepard, who posted on Zero Hedge, wonders if the MF Global failure was a hit job done by the Fed. My point is not about who is right or wrong (time will tell), but that we are getting an early, slow paced look at things to come—the story telling, guessing, shock, denial, hopeful strategizing, negotiations. The success, failure, triumph, rage, loss, and sorrow. As we move through time and defaults, the pace of people finding out that they “can’t get to their money” is going to pick up.

Today there is headline space to chide or support Celente and Fleckenstein. Today we have time to focus on what the one MF Global bankruptcy might mean about the state of the financial industry, the health of our economy, the impotence (or outright corruption) of our government regulatory agencies, and what it means for some of us as individuals. As more and more defaults and bankruptcies occur, more and more people will be claiming to have been robbed, crying about their lost retirement/college fund/income stream. They will not be news anymore. It will be the new normal. Before this is all over, most of us are going to claim we have had “our money taken” when, in reality, we are creditors who will be caught up in massive, multiple, overlapping, bankruptcy proceedings. We will want to focus on our individual situations—who did what with our money, why it was wrong, and who should go to jail. Many of us will also be the reason someone else has to go bankrupt. We will be their crook, their robber who did this that and the other with their money. And someone might want us to go to jail for it too. We are going to be at each other’s throats, in courtrooms and on the streets.

Gerald and Bill—you are not special. Today you can garner attention and sympathy (or contempt) for your plight. Tomorrow you will be but a grain of sand in an avalanche of financial discord, fuel long burned off in a raging firestorm that will consume everything, a fractal spark that flew out of the frying pan, giving us a glimpse of the future.

My husband read this and asked, “What do you advise?” At first blush, I find advice to be condescending. Who am I to advise? Buy precious metals? Have some cash on hand out of the banking system? Take all your cash out of the collapsing financial system? Stock up on some basics for emergencies? That might be decent advice but it is not the point. We need to be flexible. Focus on one individual’s situation, one company, or one country for that matter will soon be unsustainable. Few of us will escape the consequences of participation in the financial system. It is both broken and corrupt. Our “inability to get to our money” is going to cascade into each other’s lives, blowing up all kinds of relationships. We must keep our eyes and ears peeled for stories from multiple perspectives. This is why we read ZH.

Few of us will escape the consequences of participation in the financial system. It is both broken and corrupt. Our “inability to get to our money” is going to cascade into each other’s lives, blowing up all kinds of relationships. We must keep our eyes and ears peeled for stories from multiple perspectives. This is why we read ZH.

Primary Reserve was a case illiquidity. When you say breaking the buck, you are talking about a 3 cent / dollar haircut on cash reserves. Sure, the funds were tied up and redemptions were frozen, but all you really had to do was hold the rest of its securities to maturity to get back 97% of investor funds.

MF Global definitely isn't the only one and there are more to come trust me. Things are falling apart, and what the system is doing is feeding on itself to prolong itself for a few days more. When a system is down to that it's almost gone. Individuals who thought there money was safe where wrong. People who thought things couldn't happen, where wrong. Even if there was money to bail this whole mess out, it still wouldn't work. Because they are now being told or realizing that no society on this planet has been able to print/devalue their currency and still maintainn it's status. The insidious trap to debt or currency monetization is to not do it in the first place. Once you do it, it ensares you by saying print just a little more, a little more. It's always just out of reach and then you look down and see the ground coming up at you fast.

Gerald has made the interview circut on his MF Global fiasco. He was on Financial Sense this weekend along with Erik Townsend. Erik also got screwed on his oil futures when the market dropped from $115 down to $75 back in May. Townsend describes how he had protected himself with puts and knew the price of oil would be coming down, but he noticed his account was showing liquidations.

He called his broker and they told them that they were liquidating his puts to cover his longs. He told his broker that he was making a lot of money on his puts and they didn't need to liquidate the contracts. The broker tells him that according to some hidden rule in the contract his account was showing a negative on his longs.... so they had to sell his puts to make good.

Erik decides to sell his longs a at loss to get out of the situation, but he was unable to do so because of this same insane stipulation in his contract. He lost over $200,000 on this trade and explains the whole thing and how he is now deciding not to go back in the futures markets at all.

If you think you can take all you money out now and be safe, you may be wrong, dead wrong.

They can clawback your money that you withdrew, even if "organic", back TWO years!

"The Madoff trustee sued the New York Mets owners demanding withdrawals made as long as six years before the bankruptcy, before a judge restricted him to a two-year window. The Mets owners are fighting the remaining demands"

Celente whines about the whiteshoed boys but at the same time wants to make easy money playing their game. Except they changed the rules of the game for their benefit. dUH!
We need to remove all our money from brokerages since its only SIPC insured and basically insolvent. Not federal but private insured. duh. Broker investment houses need to burn.

Anyone who witnessed the failed Hunt play on silver saw the rules changed, but there was little said of this. This oldman was so outraged by this that he dropped out of the market he loved, commodities, and went to trading munis. It was a good decision because a lot of people who said he was mad ion 1981, thought he was a genius by 1984; but no one knew that he had lost interest and faith in the sysytem and had been only a lucky fool.

When everyone knows the future and talks about that and nothing more, it is time to move on---he is getting that sense now. Only a fool would begin nibbling at banks in the middle of a collapse.

Rules can get made up and 'jiggered' however the CME and it's Clearing Members see fit...and at any given time. They are no longer a non-for-profit and accountable entity. My mind quickly moves to what Henry Kiss and Rothschild said about controlling the money flow/supply....it's their tool to garner CONTROL.

This is a nice missive from MsCreant...too bad she is preaching to the choir.

Most of the people that visit this place understand MMT and the scam being run behind the scenes. Unfortunately...we reside in the minority. I've turned lots of people onto places like this where they can get a view of the underbelly of the beast that enslaves them. I'm guessing that about 1 % of those people have the mental capacity, attention span, and level of education to absorb and process the material.

When you watch the Occupy Movements....every 3rd or fourth word from the unhappy protesters seems to be the "D" word. These college/university educated people don't appear too educated to me. They appear indoctrinated...and brainwashed....and their levels of brainwashing are thick and deeply rooted. Their cries for "proper" Democracy is a signal that the Oligarchs are winning....and the future looks bleak.

The "Death Dealers" on Wall St. are comfortable in their positionings. Bankruptcy is a right of passage to them....in a sick little game that they joke about later at their private soirees. I'm guessing 98 of the 99% of the Occupy Movement don't even know what a Primary Dealer is....much less what their ties are with the FED windows and their inner workings on the CME's casino.

Americans can't hold these criminals in D.C. and their masters on Wall St. accountable......they believe they are suppose to be living in a Democracy.

All too true what you say, but these dudes are all we have right now. I am grateful that at least someone is in the streets of the US because this is a connection with the rest of the world that we have been cut off from by the msm propaganda. These dudes are a far better Secretary of State than Hilary Dilary Dock.

They need and merit our support unless we are only whining about change om

They were killed because they didn't pass some of the loot up the chain. Rouge thieves go down every day in the USA, but the bankster group never does. Madoff went down because he was stealing from the protected group, the joos. If he had kept his scam to the gentiles, he would be walking free today.

That is right. At least mafioso Corzine should go to jail, Marxist Obama removed from the office and shit Behanke kicked out. But do not whine...

All this cascading bullshit is in the minds of people who are reading Zerohedge. DO NOT READ THIS BULLSHIT EITHER. Just choose your banks and brokerages carefully. Take as much as possible of your assets to HK and Singapore. The Banks like DBS, Standard CHartered and HSBC will be fine.

My own approach is quite simple. HSBC provides excellent services, has good loan to capital ratio and is quite active in Asian Markets. What you can do with HSBC is to open accounts with different branches in different countries of this bank. These branches are licensed in each country and covered by local government insurance scheme. I typically keep funds in local currency and thus covered by government insurance in each location. Not only there is a good chance the bank will be bailed out by UK (where is head quartered) in case of emergency but also that I will be able to recover funds in various jurisdictions if it does not happen. So far, HSBC did not ask for bail out anywhere...

In my view, it is the best global bet.

Perhaps, I need to add here that as a Premier customer with HSBC, I have an opportunity of instantaneous and free transfer funds between accounts in different jurisdictions with excellent exchange rates. If something really serious start happening, I am sure that HSBC will not be the first bank to collapse and I will have plenty of opportunities to move funds or even cash all of them (HSBC has also its own international ATM network).

You, guys are just ignorant jerks sitting in your caves subject to brainwash by various dubious idiots pretending to be in the know. As all absolute idiots, you are absolutely sure that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong. The thing is with such an attitude you will end up where you began: in your filthy cave with nothing.

When the flag goes up, CDS, CDO, CLO lien holders are not subordinated - they go to the head of the line, even in front of local government insurance schemes. Your money will disappear like it did at MFG.

I know a woman who had HSBC accounts in USA and France. Just an ordinary self-imployed citizen (imigrant from France). When the SHTF in 2008, she was transferring funds from a branch in France to her account in USA. They lost the money for 6 months and refused to back out all her overdraft fees even though it was clearly their fault. She, against my advise, did not sue.

Yeah sure and that is the big problem with Zero Hedge, it makes too much sense and all us readers are in too similar of a mind set. In the end making sense and the truth should happen but what good is that when on the way down there is so much corruption and manipulation.

Figuring out the likely next move is more intuative. Our those making the moves the best thing for themselves or the country's future in which they have to live? Everyone talks and operates out of their own self interest. CNBC and cramer need investors to have a show and advertising and jobs, look for the spin and timing. They will touch the truth but when at what time of day. Is Congress worried about the next election or surviving? Everyone who is PM crazy here do you really expect Gold to save your ass and stay at a high value?, sure it makes sense but who has the power, the market? Common sense is not prevailing at the moment, and thinking that way should not be the only thought process.

Good. The more bankers, hedge fund managers, and traders destitute, unemployed, and on food stamps, the better off the US and the world will be.

US Corporations in the past have been notorious for lay-offs at holiday time to make the 4th quarter results look better. It's a pleasure to see bankers get their turn. As long as hedge funds blow up, no one who is poverty stricken and no one on Main St gives a rat's butt.

I was speaking to a young insider from one of the major financial companies the other night. He is rising in the ranks. To hear the bullshit that these guys spew, and believe, is truly horrifying. He defended the Squid as being really smart people and contended that such "smart people" deserve to be paid well. It didn't matter what they did to earn it, in his mind. He supported The Fed and Bernanke, pointing out just how smart Bernanke is. Of course his organization has never done anything wrong (even though they have) and he probably believes that he should make five times what he does.

You really have to talk to these sociopathic rejects to see just how deeply entrenched their sense of entitlement is. I am convinced that they fully believe that they are doing nothing wrong and deserve every penny they can get their hands on, regardless of the methods.

truly horrifying is to believe you can become a member of the club ... and i guess thats what this young pretender along with so many stupidos out there dream of ... i am settled on buying the powerball ticket every now and then ... Win the lottery - the New American Dream!

With much respect Arius I disagree. It is harder but not impossible. Doing God's work requires sacrifice and dedication. The attitudes and values necessary to gain entry and survive in the "club" can be learned. If you can't beat em join em. I recently qualified for a student loan and enrolled in a local institution that offers the type of skill set development one needs to become a congressional leader or top goldmanite. I start my quest tomorrow and am quietly excited. For years I slept with my sister. When discovered society shamed me. I never felt the shame or guilt I was instructed to feel. I will never forget the intense anger I experienced when my sister wanted to start charging me so I was not incapable of feeling as many suggested. Looking back it is clear I was not mentally ill. I was simply not understood because I was special. I had been blessed with a unique mental structure. One reserved for the special 1%. I look forward to the day when I transition to the correct side of the ratio.

A few spots are still available. Don't worry about question #3, second nature with only 1 hour of training.

yes they are all sociopaths. the one's that aren't will quickly hit the glass ceiling, or leave. it is a self reinforcing culture, and becomes the norm for them. since they make enough they can sisolate themselves from other views. there have been multiple experiments to show how this happens. the one where you shcok people for wrong answers, to the fake prison experiments. it is in effect how the nazi's became the normal waay of thinking.

Supposedly Herman Goering, while standing trial at Nuremberg, said: "if you look up and down the cellblock all you see is `yes men' because all the `no men' are six feet underground."

Basically it's the same thing in finance. Anyone who won't sell out their mother is kicked to the curb. Ever see "The Smartest Guys in the Room?" the traders on tape joking about grandma freezing were just low level amateurs compared to the polished sociopathy of their higher-ups.

It is not just the bankers. It includes a lot of the crowd at occupy wall street. One guy had a master's degree in puppetry and couldn't find a job so that he could pursue his dream. There's a college that has a master's program in puppetry? I don't care if there are people willing to pay for it, but this guy was forced to take a part time teaching job at the same school where he had a full time job before getting student loans and quitting to get the master's. No jobs in puppetry? Who da thunk?

The whole "living wage" meme is a form of this. It doesn't matter how much you produce, just do some work and you deserve a wage that will support a family. We have one or two generations that think they deserve being rewarded for their very existence. They are going to be shocked and angry when real austerity comes to America.

Having watched a full length satire version (which included the memorable line "WHAT?!? People in the West use paper to wipe themselves with?! Gross!") I'm a fan. Although, admittedly, my partner at the time fell asleep.

But, you've accidentally hit a key point to part of the problem: old money used to have time to spend on patronage and being entertained. New money hasn't even the soul to care about the arts.

"You really have to talk to these sociopathic rejects to see just how deeply entrenched their sense of entitlement is."Dead on. What is really, really scary is that these guys are literally running the country, and much of the world.

And this really is a big deal. Most of the time I'm here to be entertained and hopefully entertain you. CDS's being of value "nil" does represent a systemic breakdown. This "contract" is basically "how we pay for everything."

If politicians actually understood what you said about how risk now has to be priced into bonds because CDS cannot be considered a reliable hedge, then we might get somewhere.

As it stands now most politicians are financially ignorant. They think they were so smart "renegotiating" those bond deals with banks and getting them to " voluntarily" accept a 50 percent write off.

Now that every bank knows that CDS contracts can be changed from government threats and pressure, we may in hindsight be able to say that was the trigger that collapsed european sovereign bond prices and led to the breakup of the Euro.

Yep. The only thing holding those markets up was some insurance that was never going to pay out on a failure anyway. Warren Buffet's companies wrote a lot of that garbage CDS. You know that dude can't be touched. He has all his money hiding behind a charity fund now. Would the government take that charity money from the little kids and old women that Buffet is using as human financial shields?

If you are a sovereign and you get a land pattent then you own the land free and clear, so you do not pay property taxes as you do not have a deed with the state, in fact when you become a sovereign you no longer pay any taxes, because you are not in contract with " United states corporation". You will become "we the people" of the real United states of America for the first time in your life , welcome to America

So true, a frend invited me to his frends land in up state New York out by the finger lakes. It was a few years ago around this time of year for deer hunting. His frends turned out to be the famed Hatfield family who sided up with revilution and not the king back in 1776. The Hatfields where promised never to pay land tax but back around 1920 the revenewers as they say, tried to change the contract. They had to defend the land with guns and balls. stories live on in hillbilly folkelaw of how they stood there ground. i feel priveliged to have hunted on the mountin the the Hatfields own.

One thing I know, there's a lot of sick people around doctors. Now I know that correlation does not mean causation, but the more I learn about western medicine, the more I think that, in this case, the correlation does mean causation.

Example: US kids are, by far, the most heavily vaccinated in the world. Right next to the pediatiric clinic I take my kids to is an "injection clinic". I kid you not, it has a big sign up, it's only there for giving vaccinations. Always got kids lined up outside. Yet the US ranks about 35 in infant mortality. Cuba has a lower infant motality! So why do we vaccinate our kids so much? It's good business, that's all. And if you think that's not true, then you probably think the financial system is fine, too. And the political system. We kill and fuck up our kids with vaccinations mandated by big business.

My kids (1 and 2 years old) are unvaccinated. They don't get "checkups". They go to the doctor on the rare occasions that they have something wrong that I can't handle. And they're healthy as shit.

One of the main reasons for our higher infant mortality rate is that extremely premature infants are counted as live births and given intervention in an effort to save their lives. Other countries don't count them in their stats.

The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category — the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old.

Why? Because the United States also easily has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality — the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.

How does this skew the statistics? Because in the United States if an infant is born weighing only 400 grams and not breathing, a doctor will likely spend lot of time and money trying to revive that infant. If the infant does not survive — and the mortality rate for such infants is in excess of 50 percent — that sequence of events will be recorded as a live birth and then a death.

In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics.

We are walking petri dishes for virus. A good immune system is a wonderful thing. Eat well in moderation, Clean water is a must. We are all responsible for our own health, try to help yourself by treating yourself well.

The modern world is insane, do not try to emulate the nonsense surrounding you, it is an illusion. A good life may be lived anywhere, but it always cost something, do not confuse that with a life on a treadmill pursuing a carrot always out of reach.

Good health is the root of life, for without it nothing else really matters.

Think of good health for individuals as how it compares to good health of economic and business systems. Our current system is heavily diseased, because it is not healthy and has a very poor immune system. It has been weakened over the last 40 years by various infections and wounds, like the destruction of the gold standard, this was a mortal blow but only made itself appear as a slight clogging of the arteries of the economy. Over decades the arteries have become so blocked they have weakened or destroyed all the other organs. Even the so called brain, the federal reserve, is brain dead as it keeps putting its finger in the socket trying to bring the corpse back to life.

A dead economy is flailing and we all may be collateral damage as its death throes may be prolonged. Where to put your money? Where is the safe place in a sinking ship? Sometimes there are none and even the lifeboats are lost.

There are no guarantees in life, many random acts occur everday. Sometimes the pure as snow fall while the black hearted become heros, sometimes the world is a stranger, unrecognizable as the same place we went to sleep in the very night before.

We are in a transition period in which systems are struggling to regain balance, this will lead to wild swings producing further stress on the system. Some may make huge fortunes, but most will lose as there is no rhyme or reason, just luck and timing.

Even the safest bets sometimes lose. Which leaves us in the quandry of preparing for so many unknowns that we cannot be prepared for all events.

Cover the basics, food, water, shelter, if that leaves resources invest in those things you understand very well, and watch them cosely and respond rapidly to changes.

Eventually this will pass, Try to ride it out and don't swim against the tide.

I.S., you go visit the local family/country doctor. So many complaints are just simple illness/injury and these are easily remedied by some caring hands, wise words and common sense. In medical school the thing I remember most clearly is that "common things happen most commonly". These are the venue/specialty of the family doc.

Absolutely, access to high tech diagnostic/therapeutic gadgetry CAN be useful but in the end MAY also cause increased suffering and torment. Hell, let us not forget what is at the end of this roller coaster ride anyway. To acknowledge our morbidity and mortality and then face our ultimatum in comfort, peace and surrounded by loved ones is the best we can ask for in this life. Better than being strapped down with tubes everywhere, IMHO. Sorry for the editorial.

billhilly hits the head on the nail!! The older I get the more I realize the end is inevitable. I would much rather find the end with family and friends surrounding and supporting me than be strapped to a gurney with untold poisons coursing through my veins!!

30 mostly-wooded, rural acres. $400/yr taxes. I hope I never have to live there, but it's there. I add new fruit, nut, and berry plants each year just in case.

Hopefully, this all works out and I just make nice cherry furniture for the grandkids, take them on 4X4 rides, and bring home blueberries and apples for pies. The corn harvest can be used for Halloween decorations.

I still hope the numbers on the monthly statements represent real stored wealth and a future with a stable standard of living, but if not, "I got skills" and a backup plan.

If you ever do "have" to live there, you're going to spend a lot of time clearing those trees. With an axe, if you "have" to live there. You can't live under trees. You have to have sunshine, and lots of it, to grow things. Can't live on fruit and berries. Hunting? Give me a break, how long do you think it will take the starvine, well-armed masses to exterminate anything furry or feathered and edible in this country? About a month from the time the trucks stop deliveries to the supermarkets, I'd say. You need to be able to grow shit to eat.

On a 30 acre lot, you only need 1/2 to 1 acre of clear land with good soil to feed yourself an produce a surplus. But it does take preparation, The soil must be healthy, raised beds are much easier to grow and tend by hand. Crops must be segregated to control pests and disease.

A good wood lot is a handy thing for heat and lumber and shade. A house beneath a substantial tree is naturally air conditioned.

fruit trees must be tended, they need to be pruned and fenced or deer and others may not only destroy your fruit, but your trees as well.

Water is as important as land, probably more so. A stream can turn a couple of acres into a lake with a little earthworking, and a shallow lake will influence micro climate and be a good resource for growing fish. In the old days, natural refrigeration was storing butter in a water tight bag in a cool lake or river.

Farming is a 365 day job, but the tasks vary by season, it need not be boring especially if your survival is at stake.

I would at the least, build a lake, build raised beds, clear brush and make paths, fence the orchard and build a couple of storage buildings that can be used as shops or temporary housing. Used rv's are very cheap right now, and an Rv in a storage building is a self contained home that is sheltered from the weather and prying eyes.

All the capital improvements make the property more valuable should you need or want to sell it. They also make you understand the lay of the land and what sort of wildlife and varmints are living in the area.

Modern farming is mostly sitting in an air conditioned tractor watching DVDs while the automated software follows the GPS patterns these days (in the West). Otherwise it is fairly back breaking, and requires a lot of oil products to keep it from being drudgery. And yes, I come from a place where many people voluntarily do back-breaking work looking after vastly pampered equines as recreation.

Serfs did have more days off than modern grunts, but let's not forget that they hibernated in winter (those French!):

I suppose I should have said "homesteading" rather than "farming." Currently, my family produces all or our own eggs with our backyard chickens, and most of our vegitables and greens on our tiny urban homestead. This is in addition to my wife and I working full time and renovating a 100yr old bungalow [doing all the work ourselves - not GCing] - se we are intimately aquainted with hard work.

Our plans are to move up to a 5 acre spread in the mold of John Seymour. In the proper local, we envision that this should be enough to supply our family and provide enough surplus to barter for items we don't/can't grow ourselves.

No airconditioned anything in our future, I anticipate - more like a broad fork and scythe.

5 acres usually requires a (small) tractor or at least some small automation - if you can find a decent mechanic or have the skills, it is invaluable. If you need some hot-shit links to seriously smart engineers producing self-build machines (for production in Africa) I'm happy to share.

Seymour's plan is scalable and is based upon a "Home" acre that covers your basic home garden and chickens, some nut/fruit trees, etc. While the remainder of what you've got capitalizes on your land's assets, ie woodlot, pond, pastures for rotating a few cows for dairy and beef, maybe some pigs.

Joel Saladin is somebody to check out on what could/should be the future of localized larger scale farming. It is a no-till system that involves rotating cows through small sections of field, followed by poultry, using electric fences and large mobile coops - based upon prarie cyces. Very sustainable, very good yeild. Check him out.

PS I'm a former aircraft mechanic, so I've got the maintenance angle covered!

An excellent, thoughtful post. I feel like a citizen of 5th Century AD Rome contemplating the rolling thunder coming down from the North. Nothing will stop the hoards, and our lives are soon to be changed forever. I agree that giving advice can be presumptuous, but sharing ideas is not. Therefore I offer - learn to garden, get in shape to walk long distances, start riding a bike, gather your loved ones and friends around you and hold them close, and try to keep a sense of humor.

And when all else fails, look at what others have to deal with and be thankful you are not them.

Three cheers for the wise MsCreant! As I believe Marshall McLuhan punned "don't forget the CON in cofidence and the SIN in Sincere", This is way more imporant than most current lol mainstream news stories....can I hear you Natalie Wood saying from the grave? The deafening silence of the mainstream beholds that once again that the Fourth Estate has no clothes and the financial system has even less than that when this loss of CONfidence spreads.

As far as finance is concerned, today's individuals are not enlightened 21st century beings but more similar to medieval peasantry - ignorant and trustful slaves of their masters. This does not bode well....

It seems to me that as long as money is being created from nothing it was never really ours to begin with. I'm conflicted when I rage about debt creation and then expect the same debt, once it belongs in my account, to be honoured.

I am in just such a position right now. I am both owed and owe, getting a house built. This is what inspired the post, realizing that if I can't get to my money, a contractor may well see me as a theif. Glad to see you post! Thanks.

This post is a perfect example of why I read ZH, TFMetals (Turd), as well as a few others. MsCreant's post encapsulates and summarizes what's really happening and has opened my eyes that we are now that much closer to the end, how it's going to end, and what we need to do in order to be prepared.

I've been trading to earn cash in order to buy physical but I now see that we are getting awfully close to the time when we need to be cashing our chips by pulling and hoarding cash, buying more physical, taking delivery of stock certificates, etc.

The days of keeping funds in accounts are running short. There may soon come a time when what you own is only what you can find under your roof.

Here's the problem of the current environment. It's not normal in any sense of the word. In fact, it's so abnormal it has to viewed form an abnormal point of view to make any sense therof. In the real world, there are no/few/whathefuckeverhowmany truly Gaussian or Poisson distributions, for most many/most/a lot/enough for the sake of this shit, are leptokurtotic. So, as one meanders merrily out towards the tails, there are new and big bulges that all of a sudden pop up, like when I've been staring at Deta von Teese for too long. But anyhow, these bulges, of a fractalius nature should/could/just stay with me here for a moment, I'm trying to help, be viewed as their very own little special additional non-Gaussian/Poisson but yes, again, leptokurtotic distributions.Essentially distributions within distributions when viewed over extremely long/dialiated time horizons.And once one gets cast therein, assuming the sticky state of reality, almost as if it were a condition similar to stasis, then experiences tend to remain bounded therein, within their own extremes. It's as if (And probably is near to the truth, but so far I appear to be the only person working on it at this moment... or at least posting it right here if that makes anybody feel any better. Which it should not.) the fractalius nature of events (naturally occurring in mother nature, no different that pi and a few other constants, limits and associated and randomly but not really assorted givens) takes hold.So we get stuck therein, so to speak.Think of it as a Ground Hog Day condition. Which may not be easy from which to escape. So, now that we are here (not about to enter, but experiencing in actuality, real time, now) in an apparently major/the clusterfuck of reality, one can assume that within extreme conditions and given the very illogical, ego driven, emotional nature of the human condition (generally piss poor) that we'll be seeing much more of the same.So, whatever's worked for you recently, will likely persist as we continue to experience a period of significant turmoil. Sorta "the Fourth Turning meets the Book of Revelations and Murphy's Law. (Hereby termed Bozo's Law)The moral of the story, in short, is to get as absolutely fucking safe as your little can can, because it's gonna be butt ass ugly out there, way past your fondest nightmare. Like when you come to and your nightmares actually chase you around the bed at 3 a.m. when all you'd wanted was to take a piss and pass back out again. No relief. There are no more good or bad days, for they're all just one very slick, steep slope to social, economic, financial, mental and spitirual hell.Hope and pray for the best, prepare for the worst.

Knucks, I've been reading your message of late and I hear you. Groundhog Day indeed, the term "suspended animation" comes to mind for me a lot, too. I hope we're here 'cause I'm sick of it. Got myself as "safe" as possible a few years ago. . .hang tight!